


Hidden Waters

by missvillanelle



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Haku's POV, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Magic, Quests, Spirit World, Spirits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missvillanelle/pseuds/missvillanelle
Summary: How Haku became a guardian spirit, a god, a witch's apprentice, a friend, and a lover. Scenes from Haku's life before, during, and after the events depicted in "Spirited Away."
Relationships: Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi & Ogino Chihiro, Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi/Ogino Chihiro
Comments: 50
Kudos: 71





	1. One Midsummer Afternoon

No one ever taught him how to be a guardian spirit, let alone a god. He’d had to learn it all on his own.

He could barely remember those first, bright new days, when his river was just a trickle that burbled out of a natural spring when the snows melted one spring. The rains followed, and the trickle grew to a stream. By the time the stream met another stream and merged into a larger creek, he had acquired a physical form. Back then, he wasn’t the impressive dragon he was now. Back then, he was a tiny, green, amphibious newt.

As a newt, he hadn’t been able to travel the great distances he could now, soaring through the skies to cover the entire length of his mighty river. But he hadn’t needed to. The newt’s creek had been small, and he could easily get to those areas that needed him. Through instinct, and over time, he learned what his duties as a guardian spirit were: protecting and ensuring the well-being of those who lived in his waters, keeping the creek free of debris that might block its path, and defending against invasive species and spirits that might upset the fragile balance of his creek’s ecosystem.

He couldn’t remember exactly when he learned his name, but it must have been centuries, even millennia, after his birth—after the creek had grown into a small river, and then into a larger river that finally met and surged into the sea. His physical form had grown along with it, from a nimble newt to a sinuous water snake, and finally, to his current powerful dragon form. His abilities had grown as well, and now he was able to stay outside of his river for extended periods of time; he could fly from his headwaters in the mountains to the silty wetlands where his fresh waters met saline ones, covering the hundreds of leagues in mere minutes. He could also fight more effectively, using his lethal claws and his fearsome fangs as necessary to protect his denizens. Luckily, his reputation as a fierce defender of his river spread quickly, so other spirits learned to leave him and his alone.

Humans, on the other hand, were a different story altogether. Most of them were completely senseless to the spirits around them and so never challenged him, at least not in any way he could understand. In fact, he wouldn’t realize, until it was too late, the danger humans posed to his river—threats he couldn’t counter with tooth and claw. Flushed and proud from too many easy triumphs against other spirits, he began to think of himself as a god, as indeed he was to the many beings who depended upon him for their comfort and even survival. But the humans, ignorant of guardian spirits or gods, paid him no fealty—and in return he, being far removed from them, paid them no mind.

His name, though, or at least part of it, he had accepted from the humans. He had discovered that humans weren’t content to let things be; they needed to name things, as if naming something gave them possession of that thing. Over time, like a baby learns its name through constant repetition, he realized that what the humans called the Kohaku River was in fact him. He didn’t object to the name; it was apt even, in certain places where his river was turbulent enough that the churning silt colored the waters a muddy amber. But, as with all names humans bestowed upon things they couldn’t understand, it was ill-fitting and inadequate. It wasn’t too long before he started thinking of himself as Nigihayami Kohakunushi—the god of the swift-flowing and flourishing amber river—to properly capture the full essence of his being and power.

Not that the humans knew him by that name, of course. They continued to call him the Kohaku River, and that was fine with him. It was fine with him when they built bridges over the widest parts of his river to cross from one bank to another. It was fine with him when they drew water from parts of his river to bathe with, drink, and irrigate their crops. It was even fine with him when they threw animal refuse into his river; it served as fertilizer for the plants that grew along his banks. And when, on occasion, they threw themselves into his river with the intention of ending their own lives, he was fine with that too. He never interfered; like the animal waste, the bodies would nourish the fish and other creatures that lived in his waters. Only when children were involved would he play the god he was. Children were helpless, like those he was committed to protecting. When children accidentally fell into his waters, he always guided them gently back to the banks and waited, unseen, to make sure they found their parents or friends.

As the humans grew in numbers, he stopped appearing in his physical form, except at nighttime when their weak eyes would not be able to make out his dragon shape, particularly given how swiftly he ascended into the sky. But still he watched, quietly and unobtrusively, from his river. He watched as they entered the calmer parts of him to bathe, to fish, and later, to swim for recreation. He watched as they encroached upon his banks, building houses, fields, and even factories, working industriously and living their tiny lives. Sometimes, though, they would come to his banks to idly sit there, doing nothing at all. He didn’t understand this behavior, or its purpose. But then again, he didn’t understand humans, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to.

* * *

The joyous burbles of laughter broke the dragon from his lazy reverie one midsummer afternoon. The sun, which had blazed fiercely earlier in the day, was starting its solemn and inevitable descent toward the wide sea in the west. In his younger days, the dragon had loved chasing the sun’s reflected rays for leagues as they had rippled along the currents of the river. Today, he was content to simply doze near the surface and warm his scales in the waning light. The best part of his river for that was right here, by a wide green knoll that sloped inexorably down to the river, as if yearning like a lover for its cool touch. The waters here were profound and swift, a testament to the dragon’s true name.

The laughter sounded again, high-pitched but not unpleasant. The dragon raised his head out of the water, crocodile-like, to see a girl-child not long past her third or fourth summer delightedly reaching for the dragonflies shimmering over the water’s surface. His eyes narrowed as the girl stepped into his river, intent on catching one of the iridescent insects, then widened as the girl slipped and fell in. She stood up soon enough, but then cried out in dismay as she saw a little pink shoe being carried away on the strong current. Without thinking, the girl reached out for her shoe and unbalanced, disappearing below the surface. Equally without thinking, the dragon unfurled himself and dove after her.

The swift-flowing and flourishing river quickly carried her far downstream, but even then it did not take long for him to catch her gently with his teeth and swing his head around to deposit her on his neck. Wide-eyed but fearless, she grabbed onto his horns as they turned around and battled upstream, his strong muscles bunching and releasing beneath her, his heart pulsing with a fierce and sudden joy. They surfaced not too far from where she had entered the water; the dragon could see the hastily abandoned remnants of a picnic laid out on a checkered blanket nearby, but no humans anywhere. The girl clambered down from his neck and stepped away from him, calling “Otousan! Okaasan!” for her parents. From not far away, they heard relieved voices calling back indistinctly.

He could not say, later, why he did not melt away unseen into his river, as he had done before on the handful of other occasions when he had saved children from an early and watery death. Instead the dragon hesitated, half in, half out of the water, finding himself unable to leave this beguiling child, yet unwilling to let her human parents discover him. The girl turned back to him, then reached up to pull his great shaggy head down towards her, holding it against her chest. “Thank you!” she breathed softly, letting go of his head. “My name is Chihiro. I won’t ever forget you.” The dragon looked at her solemnly with his inhuman green eyes, bowed his head, then turned away and retreated into the river. “Kohaku,” he thought as he dove back into the now murky currents. “My name is Nigihiyami Kohakunushi. And I will not forget you either.”

Only much later did he realize how his words, spoken silent but true in the faltering light, had bound him like a spell or a vow, with none but a few flickering fireflies to bear witness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love the idea of Haku as a little newt that grew up into a dragon. In this chapter, Haku is older and even world-weary, but that will change in the next chapters, as he loses his river and needs to find his way in the spirit world.


	2. Bereft

It happened in the half-light of an early autumn morning, several years after Kohaku saved Chihiro, and several years before Chihiro would save Kohaku. 

The stars had started to dim one by one by the time the dragon, finished with his nocturnal patrol of the river, began his descent towards the brackish waters of his estuary, ready to indulge in his favorite meal of fresh shrimp. He had just spotted a small flock of red-crowned cranes feeding in the shallow water and was preparing to join them when he felt a sudden jolt ripple along the entire length of his lithe body. A terrifying numbness followed, as if all of his senses had abruptly abandoned him; disoriented and powerless, the dragon plummeted to the earth. Struggling to give one last command with the dregs of his consciousness, he bade the reeds along the river rearrange themselves into a net to break his fall.

The red-crowned cranes lifted their majestic heads, beaks full of shrimp, to take in the curious sight of a hastily assembled raft of reeds catching something—or someone—that had tumbled from the sky. They froze, their wary eyes intently assessing, their wide wings half-unfolded and ready to lift off. After a few moments, when they saw that the strange figure lay still and unthreatening as it drifted slowly past them, the cranes gracefully bowed their heads back to the water and returned their attention to its crustacean bounty.

* * *

When he finally opened his eyes, he could not tell how long or how far he had drifted, but the reeds of the raft had broken apart, unable to support their burden any longer on the turbulent open water. Instead, he found himself being held aloft on the waves by the grace of the Western Sea, a wise, grandmotherly spirit he knew and respected. His body felt strangely heavy, but at the same time achingly empty. It was a disconcerting feeling, one he had never experienced before. But he decided to set that aside for now; he had more immediate concerns. “Obaasan,” he rasped politely, or as politely as he could through parched lips, “Where am I?” Then, quietly, closing his eyes, ashamed of his own helplessness, “Have you any fresh water?” But the old spirit said nothing and merely rocked him in her watery arms as if he were a child, gently caressing his long hair with her waves as it billowed about like seaweed.

His long hair. His eyes shot open again. He stared up at the distant stars, at the vastness of the inky sky, and he felt for the first time his own insignificance. He _felt_ smaller, both in body and in mind, and for the first time in his long life, he knew trepidation as he painfully lifted his head to look down on his body. If he hadn’t already half-expected it, he probably would have lost his senses again from the shock. But his gaze was steady as he took in his skin, pale in stark contrast to the dark water—not gleaming white as his scales had been, but dull and almost bluish in cast, though he would later realize that was from the cold.

The cold. He was cold. His senses returned to him in a painful rush. He could feel numbness in his fingers and toes—his _human-shaped_ fingers and toes—but unlike earlier, it was a presence of sensation rather than a lack. His throat was excruciatingly dry, and he yearned for fresh water, but he knew he was still far from land. He tried to communicate his need to the sea spirit, tried to call into her mind the image of his own waters meeting hers, but she could not understand the concept of fresh water. The farthest she had ever reached into his river was the estuary, where the water was still half saline. “Land,” he thought at her. “Please take me to land.” That she understood, though she was saddened that he didn’t want to stay safe in her embrace. But he was a fellow spirit, even if he looked like a human, and she indulged him, unfathomable to her though his request was.

The first gleaming rays of sunlight were just starting to break over the waves when the boy felt gentle and curious touches along his body, prodding him in the direction of a distant and unseen shore. He opened his eyes and saw broad backs and dorsal fins gliding smoothly alongside him. He had heard of these creatures before, and indeed had even known a few of their kind to live in his river once, though they had long ago abandoned it to return to the open sea. For the first time since he had fallen from the sky, he felt a measure of relief. Though these creatures were not spirits, they possessed understanding, far greater than that of humans. He knew that they meant him no harm, that they were indeed even trying to help him. Pulling himself upright in the water, he reached out a hand to the one swimming closest to him. Understanding his intention, the dolphin submerged, letting the boy swing one leg over his back. Holding onto its dorsal fin, the boy allowed himself to be borne through the water, reminded of the time he had done the same with the girl—the one whose name he suddenly remembered. Chihiro.

The thought of the girl brought his mind back to the other, more unwelcome, thoughts he had put aside earlier. Now, as he sailed through the water on the dolphin’s back, hurtling towards an unknown land, he allowed his mind to cautiously explore them. He couldn’t quite describe in words exactly what this sensation was that he was feeling. Heaviness. He felt weighed down, though by what burden he couldn’t say. As a dragon, he had been a creature of both water and air. He had traveled effortlessly through both of those elements, as though weightless and frictionless. He knew he had had a physical form, but it had never dragged upon him like this new one did. Heavy, slow, cumbersome. He sighed as he regarded his hands in front of him, grasping the dolphin’s fin. They were so small, so insignificant. He remembered his long, impressive talons, with their sharp, lethal claws. These hands—these child’s hands—could not do any damage no matter how hard he tried. How could he fight, defend, protect with these weak and puny hands?

Protect. He had been protecting someone—no, many someones. An entire microcosm of creatures had depended on his protection. The boy squeezed his eyes shut. It was slipping away. He could feel the emptiness within him expanding, overtaking his memories, replacing them with this feeling of… what? Loss. Incomprehensible, unendurable loss. Yet try as he could, he could not remember exactly _what_ he had lost, only that he knew he was now incomplete. Bereft. And utterly alone. The boy buried his head into the dolphin’s slick side and began to cry, his tears silent and unnoticed as they slid down his cheek and joined the saline waters of the Western Sea.

* * *

Chihiro was eating her favorite breakfast of savory rice porridge with roasted black seaweed sprinkled on top when she heard her father give a surprised grunt. “So,” he said, “they finally went through with it.”

Her mother Yuko looked up from her own newspaper. “With what?” she asked.

“With the Kohaku River project,” her father Akio answered. “After all that discussion and all those protests, the developers finally won. They filled in about 30 kilometers of the river to build that new complex of apartment buildings. Right by where we used to go for picnics, remember?”

Yuko came and stood behind her husband, looking over his shoulder at the photo of a muddy construction site that accompanied a short article in his newspaper. “Oh, yes,” she said. “And remember that one time when Chihiro fell into the river?” Chihiro, who had been only half listening to her parents’ conversation until then, looked up at the sound of her name. “I did what?” she asked.

Her mother looked at her and smiled. “It must have been about three years ago now, when you were about four. We were having a picnic down by the Kohaku River and you were playing just along the bank. All of the sudden, you were gone. Your dad and I couldn’t tell if you had fallen in, or if you had run off somewhere else. We ran around frantically, searching for you, calling your name. Then, suddenly, you were back, dripping wet but laughing… and missing a shoe. You never told us what happened to you. We assumed you had fallen into the water and then somehow managed to climb back out. Though I never knew how you did that. The currents there were so strong.” Yuko closed her eyes and gave a brief shiver. “At any rate, maybe it’s a good thing they filled that river up. I can’t help but think how badly that afternoon could’ve turned out, if things had gone differently.”

Chihiro shrugged. She had no memory of that day so long ago—though, even now as she thought about it, she felt a sudden exhilaration, almost as if she had been flying. “Maybe it’s just the relief of being alive,” she thought, “when I could’ve died that day.”

Then, her seven-year-old mind turned back to happier thoughts, like the new bicycle her parents had given her earlier that weekend. She couldn’t wait to ride it down the street to show her friends. It was a beautiful autumn morning, and she eagerly gulped down the rest of her breakfast, ready to get her day started.

* * *

The sun was midway through its journey across the sky when the boy felt the dolphin under him dive down suddenly, leaving him upright, treading water by instinct. In front of him was an empty, sandy shore that stretched as far as he could see. It was so different from his estuary that he blinked away sudden tears of frustration. He could tell there was no river nearby, and he despaired. The dolphins pressed against him, trying to reassure him. And then, for the first time since he had entered her waters, he heard the spirit of the Western Sea whisper to him, “You are here now. Go and find this fresh water you need. Survive.”

“What is this place?” the boy asked, fearing the answer. “It doesn’t look like… it doesn’t _feel_ like… home.”

“This is the spirit world,” she replied gravely. “You no longer have any physical ties to the world you knew before. You cannot go back there. This is your home now.” The grandmotherly spirit could feel the boy’s dismay, bordering on panic, but she could do nothing except break the news to him as gently as she could.

The boy felt his feet touch the gritty bottom of this new land. It felt solid and all too real. He tried, once again, to call upon his power, to transform into a dragon… a newt… anything besides this clumsy, weak humanoid form. Once again, nothing happened. His strength drained by his futile attempts, he fell forward and was caught by the waves. “Survive,” the spirit urged him, and with a soft, wet caress on his cheek, she withdrew back into her world.

On his hands and knees, the boy slowly clambered onto the beach, the surf gently but inexorably pressing him forward, centimeter by centimeter, relentlessly driving him towards his strange new home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Western Sea" here refers to the Sea of Japan, which is ironically sometimes called the "East Sea." I took a bit of artistic license in describing a river that starts in the mountains and ends in an uninhabited estuary that empties into the Sea of Japan. There aren't, as far as I know, any actual rivers in Japan like this. Most of the ones that are large enough to be the Kohaku River are highly developed, especially as they near the bodies of water they empty into. 
> 
> Although Chihiro's parents say in the story that the part of Kohaku River was filled in, later on it will be revealed that it was only covered over (as the Japanese version of the film has it), forcing the river underground. I think that the shock of the overall structure of the river being altered so much is what physically separates Haku from his river, forcing him into the spirit world. I did a bit of research for this chapter, and one interesting fact I found is that several rivers that have been forced underground are now being "daylighted," or brought back to the surface. So there is indeed hope for Haku reuniting with his river, as we'll see later in the story.


	3. Found

The weather in the spirit world was notoriously fickle. Sometimes sheets of warm rain would descend interminably for weeks, followed by overnight snows that would be melted away the following day by blazing sunshine that would then persist for a few perfect days. Today was one of those rare latter days, and the old forest spirit had decided to take advantage of it, venturing down to the river to do laundry. There wasn’t much to do, as she lived alone with her husband, and they didn’t own very much in the way of clothing. Or anything else, really.

A faint irregular splashing sound coming from around a bend upriver caused the old woman to pause in her meditative rhythm—scrub, scrub, rinse, scrub—and lift her head, listening intently. It sounded too big to be one of the ducks or occasional geese that frequented the area. She turned back to her husband’s white linen hadagi, now getting a bit threadbare and fraying along the hems. She clucked her tongue sadly. She would just need to patch it up as best she could; they couldn’t afford to replace it right now.

The old woman had just finished wringing out the wet shirt when she glimpsed something strange coming around the bend in the river. It was effortlessly cutting its way through the water like a river otter, but it was much, much larger. And it was pale, almost white, and moving swiftly towards her in sure, almost joyous, strokes of its strong limbs. The woman cried out in surprise as she realized that it was a boy—a young boy looking no more than nine or ten years old.

Startled by the cry, the boy stopped swimming and stood up, looking around. He spotted the old spirit by the river and gaped. It was the first being he had encountered in the spirit world since he had crawled ashore and somehow made his way to this river, luckily only a few leagues away from the beach. He had nearly cried from relief as he had plunged his entire head into the river, gulping thirstily, relishing the sensation of the cool water slipping down his parched throat. And as the life-giving water had replenished his physical body, it had brought with it a small but stubborn flicker of hope. Even though this wasn’t _his_ river, even though he had no idea where he was or what awaited him, he had felt an immediate sense of homecoming. Walking slowly towards the center of the river with a newfound resolve, he had dived straight in, somehow knowing just how to move his arms and legs to propel him through the water. “Survive,” the old sea spirit had told him. Yes, he had thought. Yes, he would.

But first he needed sustenance. The boy had hazy memories of hunting fish in his river—the simple delight he had taken in swiftly undulating his long body in pursuit, secure in the knowledge of his ultimate success. Again, he felt a wave of frustrated disgust over this new, slow, inadequate body of his. He would have to catch fish the way he had seen humans do it… with his bare hands. He stood up and mimicked the stance he remembered, crouched silently over the surface with his hands in the water. But his hands kept coming up empty, despite multiple attempts. It must be the current, he reasoned. It was too strong where he was. He needed to find someplace calmer, where the fish would be swimming slowly enough for him to grasp one. He dove back into the water and made his way downstream.

Now, he stared at the old female spirit kneeling by the low bank of the river, a white shirt in her hands. She gave her head a quick shake, as if to dispel her disbelief at seeing a naked boy standing in the middle of the river. Wordlessly, she held the damp hadagi out to him. The boy looked down at himself, sighed in resigned understanding, then reached for the shirt and pulled it on. “Thank you, obaasan,” he said politely but hesistantly. He wasn’t sure what to make of her. She looked human, as he did, but he was certain she was a spirit, as he was. In the world he had come from (he wouldn’t deign to call it the human world, but he supposed that was what it was, by this point), most spirits took the form of animals, although some appeared as monsters or demons. He had never encountered another spirit that looked human. He wondered how many of them—how many of _us_ , he corrected himself—there were in the spirit world.

The old spirit looked at him thoughtfully, with a glimmer of something he couldn’t quite interpret in her eyes. Then she smiled. “Come with me,” she said. “You look hungry.” Deciding she looked trustworthy, the boy stepped out of the water, stooped to pick up her basket of laundry from the ground, and followed her away from the safety of the river. They walked for a short time through a sparse forest, then arrived at a small clearing. Tucked into the shadow of two tall trees was a modest hut, its dull clay walls and thatched roof looking in dire need of repair.

“Come inside. It’s all right,” the old spirit urged as the boy hesitated on the doorstep, one hand holding the reed blinds aside. He had never been inside a dwelling before, and he felt a wave of dread overtake him as he peered into the darkness of the single, windowless room. The old woman pottered around in the dark, hovering over the small cooking hearth that stood in the center of the room. In a matter of minutes, she had unbanked the coals and started up a small fire. The growing flames slowly lit the room. Dimly recalling the heart-pounding, time-stopped moments right before he had thrown himself into battle against the few spirits who had dared challenge him, the boy took a deep breath and stepped into the hut.

“Sit,” the spirit commanded, gesturing at the floor next to the hearth. “My husband caught some eels this morning. You look like you might like them.” The boy slowly lowered himself to a kneeling position on the ground, awkward now that he was no longer in his element. Diffidently, he looked around the hut, darting unobtrusive glances at his hostess now and again as she calmly stirred an earthen pot on the cooking fire. Although she looked to be quite old, she possessed the ageless aura that all spirits have; it gave her features a curious lenticular quality, appearing wizened in one instant and suddenly youthful in another.

“Do you know your name?” the woman asked after a while, startling the boy from his quiet contemplation of his hands, folded in his lap. They were still pale but no longer blue from the cold. He held them out in front of him, close to the flames. He had never felt the warmth of a fire before, and it surprised him how much he relished the sensation. “I’m not sure,” he replied slowly. “I think I had one… before… but I don’t remember what it was.”

The woman nodded sagely. “Yes,” she said. “That is what happened to all of us who came here as I imagine you did. You lost something in the other world, right?” She smiled at his surprised look. “If I had to guess, I would say it was a body of water.”

The boy closed his eyes. “My river,” he confirmed quietly. “I can remember only bits of it. I can’t remember its name, or mine. But I remember what it felt like. And I remember what _I_ felt like. What… what happened to it?”

“I don’t know,” the old woman replied, ladling stew from the pot into a small bowl, which she placed in his hands. He nodded his thanks and raised the bowl to his lips. It was delicious, the texture of the eel soft and chewy instead of tough and rubbery as he had ever had it before, raw and writhing. “My guess,” the woman continued as she watched him eat, a satisfied expression on her face, “is that it had something to do with humans. That would explain why you look like a human. That’s my theory, at least.”

The boy stared at her, wide-eyed. “Why I look like a human? Is that what happened to you too? Is that why you look human?”

The woman sighed. “I’m not sure,” she began, “but here in the spirit world there are many different types of spirits. Spirits of animals, spirits of vegetables, spirits of inanimate objects even. For the most part, they look as they do in the other world, or very similar at least. But some of us look human instead, and most of us like that are spirits of the natural world: forests, hills, mountains…,” she paused, looking sympathetically at him, “… rivers. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with what happened to us in the other world. Humans caused our destruction, so here we look like them.”

The boy’s face darkened. “The gods have a twisted sense of humor, then,” he muttered angrily. “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” the woman sighed again. “To teach us humility, perhaps? I lost my forest many, many decades ago. There was a war, and the humans cut down my trees to provide lumber for the war effort. My forest was large, and my trees were majestic. I myself was a beautiful, sure-footed doe, and nothing in my forest was fleeter or stronger. All the creatures in the forest were under my protection, and they worshipped me like a god.” She laughed ruefully. “Sound familiar?”

The boy lowered his eyes and nodded mutely, his anger dissipating, though he remained slightly resentful over his situation still. The two of them sat in silence as the boy finished his stew. “Thank you,” he finally said. “That was truly wonderful.”

“You’re welcome,” the old woman replied. “You can call me Miki. That’s what my husband calls me, the old softie, so you may as well. And I guess we should find something to call you, if you’re going to stay here a bit.”

The boy was taken aback. He hadn’t thought much about what he was going to do, beyond finding fresh water and food. But he remembered the old sea spirit’s commandment. He would need to learn all he could about the spirit world in order to survive in it. He thought for a few moments, then bowed formally to the old spirit. “Thank you, Miki-sama” he replied gravely. “I’d like that.” The two sat in companionable silence, the boy closing his eyes as he thought of swift amber currents, of cool murky depths, of fireflies flickering on a warm midsummer evening. The image of unfurling white coils, shining in the sun, fleeted suddenly across his mind. “I think,” he said quietly. “I think I would like to be called Haku.”

* * *

The old woodcutter returned at dusk. Miki heard him coming and hurried out of the hut to greet him. “Hinoki, dearest! I have a surprise for you,” she whispered, her face glowing with unaccustomed joy, like an oil lamp lit again after a long period of disuse. Setting his ax and wood-carrying frame down and leaning them against the wall of the hut, he smiled at her. It had been a long time since he had seen her like this.

“What is it? Did you find golden treasure at the bottom of the river when you went to do the laundry?” he teased gently.

“Even better!” she answered, her eyes shining. “A child! A boy child! After all these years of waiting, of wanting, we’ve been blessed with a child! He’s inside sleeping, poor thing. I found him in the river.”

Hinoki stepped back, startled. “A spirit? Lost, as we were?”

“Yes,” his wife nodded. “A river spirit. He doesn’t remember much of the other world. He has forgotten his name. He was hungry, and angry, and so, so lost. You remember what it was like. I’ve…,” she paused, eyeing her husband carefully. “I’ve asked him to stay with us, and he agreed.”

Hinoki looked at the hut thoughtfully, then nodded. “I am glad you found him, dear wife. We were so fortunate to have found each other here after losing our forests.” He smiled at her, then shook his head grimly. “This world is not kind to those who wander through it alone. I think he will need us.”

“Yes, my dear,” agreed his wife. “But not as much as we need him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one or two are loosely based on the Japanese folk tale "Momotaro-san," which my mother used to tell me when I was a child, and which my grandmother had told her when she was a child. In this part of the folk tale, an old woodcutter and his wife live by a river. The couple is childless, but they have always wanted a child. One day, as the old woman was doing laundry in the river, she saw a giant peach floating towards her. She brought the peach home, thinking how delighted her husband would be to have it for dessert that evening. When she cut it open, however, she found a beautiful baby boy inside. The old couple called the boy "Momotaro" (meaning "peach" and "eldest son"), and raised him as their own son.
> 
> On the subject of names, I decided to call the old woman forest spirit "Miki," which can be translated as "beautiful tree" (the implication is that her husband gave her that name once they found themselves in the spirit world). Her husband's name, "Hinoki," is a type of Japanese cypress tree. One of the translations for "Haku" that I found was "white," which I thought was very appropriate for him. I also thought it was important that he give himself this name, rather than have Yubaba give it to him. (But more on that later in the story!)


	4. Of Spirits, Shadows, and Magic

Like the weather, the passage of time in the spirit world was unpredictable. There didn’t seem be to be any seasons, at least not as the boy who called himself Haku had known them in the other world. Sometimes it was so cold that the river froze over, and he had to use the old woodcutter’s ax to cut a hole large enough for him to fish through. Sometimes it rained so hard and so long that the swollen river overwhelmed its banks and surged forward to meet the awaiting forest like a long-lost lover. And sometimes the heat was so oppressive that Haku longed for respite after a long day of helping Hinoki cut wood, promptly diving into the river at sundown to quench his thirst and let the blessed coolness wash over his body as he lay prone in the water. In moments like these, he would feel a wave of peace and nostalgia overcome him, as well as a curious and inexplicable sense of anticipation. Something important—no, something vital—had happened to him once when he was in a state just like this. But try as hard as he could, he could not call to mind what it had been.

The days blended seamlessly into one another as Haku stayed with the old forest spirits, learning as much as he could from them about the spirit world. Although the old couple lived alone, Haku met a variety of other spirits when he accompanied Hinoki every few days to the market village to sell the wood they had cut. There were smooth-talking toad spirits hawking guaranteed cures for warts and other ailments, regal-looking crane spirits selling freshly caught fish and shrimp (Haku always lingered the longest by their stalls), sleepy little bat spirits peddling all kinds of exotic-looking fruit, and energetic bee spirits offering gorgeously colored flowers. Haku was fascinated by them all; he had never seen so many spirits gathered together in one place, even a few human-looking ones like Hinoki and himself. Hinoki had pointed out a few of the latter to him when he first started going to the market. Most of them were tree or forest spirits like his foster parents, having lost their habitats when humans had cut them down to advance their own selfish agendas. But there were others: a mountain spirit whose craggy home had been blasted apart for easier access to the precious minerals inside; a plains spirit whose wide grassland had been covered over by concrete buildings to house a burgeoning human population; even another river spirit, whose mighty river, Hinoki informed him, had been dammed by humans who wanted to harness its awesome power for their own use.

But among all of the other spirits Haku met during his time with the old forest spirits, there had not been a single dragon. Nor could any of the other human-shaped spirits assume the physical forms they had worn when they were in the other world. Haku tentatively asked his foster parents about this one evening during dinner, the three of them sitting companionably around the central cooking hearth just as Haku and Miki had done his first day there, so long ago.

“Change?” Hinoki considered the question carefully. “No, I’ve not heard of any spirit here able to change their physical form. If you are an animal spirit, you look like that animal, more or less. If you’re a natural spirit, you usually look like a human. I haven’t heard of any spirit who has more than one form here.”

“There are a few spirits who can go between the two worlds,” his wife added thoughtfully. “Where the borders are porous. Like the old spirit of the Western Sea, who brought you here. But I’ve never seen her take on a physical form here.”

Haku nodded. He had never seen the Western Sea spirit assume a physical form in his old world either. “So neither of you have been able to change into your old forms? Don’t you miss them?” he asked. Miki had been a fleet-footed and beautiful doe, he knew, and Hinoki had been a fierce and proud boar.

“We do, of course.” Miki answered for both of them. “But we count ourselves lucky. At least we are still here, in a solid physical form, even if it’s one we had to get used to at first. At least we have that. Not like the shadow people.”

“The shadow people?” Haku asked, his eyes widening. He had never heard of them before.

“Yes,” responded Hinoki soberly. “There aren’t any of them around here. They tend to live along the train route. You know the train we told you about, the one that runs clear to the other side of the spirit world?” Haku nodded. It was one of the many things they had told him about the spirit world that hadn’t seemed important at the moment, since he hadn’t planned on going anywhere then. He had filed the information away in his mind for later. Now, he realized, he was becoming more intrigued by the idea of a train that crossed the breadth of the spirit world.

“The shadow people,” Miki continued, picking up where Hinoki left off (it was one of the couple’s habits that Haku found extremely endearing), “are humans who are stuck here in the spirit world. They have passed in their own world, but for some reason they cannot move on and be reincarnated like other humans who die. Instead, they somehow end up here, living in homes that are shadows of their former homes. They go blindly about, following their old routines, never realizing that they’re just living a shadow of their former lives.”

“I’ve heard that some of them just ride the train all day,” Hinoki took over. “Every day, they get on, ride it to another stop far away, get off, cross the track, wait for another train going in the opposite direction, ride it back, and get off again. Then they do the same thing the next day… and the next… and the next.” He shook his head sadly.

Haku shuddered silently at this description. A shadow life, an empty life, a life devoid of joy or purpose. He couldn’t even contemplate the futility of it. But was it so different from his life now? For the first time since he had arrived in the spirit world, he found himself wondering. “Survive,” the old sea spirit had told him. And he had done that, learning what he could to live in this new world. He had gotten used to his human form, and the physical labor he had done in the time he’d been here—helping Hinoki cut and carry wood, re-thatching the roof with rushes he had cut himself, clearing and planting a vegetable patch beside the hut for Miki—had served to strengthen his young limbs and hone his control over his body. Even though he was nowhere near as swift or powerful as he had been as a dragon, he was still a strong, healthy, and agile boy.

He was also taller than he had been when he had first arrived, having grown by at least a handspan. He hadn’t known spirits could grow and age, but his foster parents confirmed that they could… if they wanted to. They themselves had decided they wanted to grow old together, and so they had. But they could remain at this age for as long as they wanted, since spirits in the spirit world did not die, unless they were killed or decided they wanted to stop existing. Haku remembered how Miki had watched him closely when she had told him that last bit, as if she were gauging his desire to end his own existence. It had been not very long after Haku had arrived in the spirit world, when he had asked curiously about their age. But the boy had not seemed to be too affected by the information. The despair that she had sensed in him when they had first met had slowly dissipated, to be replaced by something fledgling and new. Something she couldn’t quite figure out yet, something he was likely unaware of himself… but she knew it had taken root deep inside him, slowly nourished by everything new he learned here, but not quite ready to make itself known.

Until now.

Haku closed his eyes as he felt a sudden rush of frustration, loss, and something else he couldn’t name well up inside him. He almost fell over from the physical sensation overwhelming him, as if he had been pummeled by an invisible foe. It receded as quickly as it came, but left in its wake something he had never felt before—longing. And at the edge of that longing hovered something else, something he thought he had forgotten—a desire to protect. The first, he knew, was a longing for what he had been, his power, his past. His dragon form. The second was more nebulous, and tinged with something different from the normal sense of protectiveness he had harbored as a guardian of the creatures who lived in his river. He realized with a shock that what he desired was to protect _someone_. But who that someone was, he had no idea.

He pushed the second thought aside. He would deal with it later, if at all. But the first… the first he could do something about now.

“How can I get my power back?” he asked the forest spirits, who were watching him carefully. “How can I be a dragon again?”

The two old forest spirits looked at each other, both experiencing the same twinge of dismay at his words. Not only because they knew this meant Haku would be leaving them soon, but because they knew what lay ahead for him if he chose this path.

“There is a way. The only way we know of,” Hinoki began reluctantly. Haku looked expectantly at the two of them. He knew they were hesitating, and he even suspected why, but he needed to know what they were holding back.

“Despite my appearance,” he stated coolly, “I am not a child. Whatever it takes, I can do it. I _will_ do it.”

Hinoki and Miki both shrank back slightly at his haughty tone. They had forgotten that Haku was as ancient as they were, likely even more so. His time with them had almost been like a second childhood, and they had fallen quickly, even eagerly, into the role of parental caregivers. They now realized that Haku had been the one to let them do so, recognizing that their need to nurture and guide had been even greater than his to be nurtured and guided.

“Magic,” Miki finally whispered, closing her eyes in resignation. “The only way you can transform into a dragon again is with magic. And the only two beings in this world powerful enough to teach you how are the twin witches: Yubaba and Zeniba.”

“Magic,” Haku repeated, nodding grimly to himself. He knew now what he had to do, and what he would have to give up to do it. He was a dragon, and dragons are fateful creatures. He could feel Fate wrapping her long arms around him, pulling him into her inexorable embrace, claiming him as her own, and he could not resist it even if he had wanted to. He looked up at the two forest spirits, who were clutching each other in an attempt to prevent themselves from reaching out to hold him, and his gaze softened. “So, tell me,” he continued, smiling gently at the old forest spirits who had taken him in and given him so much. “How do I find these twin witches?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long! I got stuck for weeks trying to write it, and I finally realized that it was because I was trying to write about Haku's journey to the bathhouse (which I wanted to structure on the rest of the Momotaro-san folktale), but I couldn't move ahead with it because this chapter needed to be written first, to set it up. 
> 
> I know that I say in the chapter that the train runs in both directions. By the time this story gets to the events of the movie, the train will run only in one direction (away from the bathhouse). I just haven't figured out yet what happens to make it that way, but I suspect Haku will have something to do with it. ;-)


	5. The Journey Begins

Chihiro wasn’t sure she had heard her parents correctly. “What did you say?” she asked in disbelief. “Because I _know_ you didn’t just say we were going to move,” she continued, accusingly.

Her father bristled at her tone. “That’s exactly what we said,” he stated in what he thought of as his most commanding voice. “It’ll still be some time before it actually happens, but we wanted to tell you now so you could start getting used to the idea.”

Chihiro glared at her parents, trying to hold back the tears of frustration that were threatening to well up in her eyes. They stared back at her, unrelenting. “This is a really big deal for your father,” Yuko tried in what she thought of as her most reasonable voice. “It’s a big promotion; he’s going to be in charge of the whole branch of the bank there.”

“ _There_ ,” spat Chihiro. “ _There_ is in the middle of nowhere. In the boonies. Far from the city. Far from my friends!”

“It’s not the middle of nowhere,” her mom responded. “Be reasonable, honey. At the worst, it’s in the suburbs. And we can have a real house! We won’t be crammed into this tiny apartment anymore. There might even be a little garden for you to play in.”

“I’m nine years old, mother. I don’t _play_ in gardens. This is _so_ unfair!” Chihiro stormed.

Her parents exchanged looks. This had gone better than they had expected. Chihiro would get over it, they told themselves. True, the town they were moving to wasn’t as exciting as where they lived now. But Akio would be making so much more money, not to mention getting a covetable new title: Executive Branch Manager. They could even get that German car he had wanted for so long. Chihiro would survive. They would make it up to her by buying her a new computer, one with video capabilities so she could keep in touch with her friends.

“Look, Chihiro,” her father sighed. “It’s going to be at least another six months or so before we can actually move. We still need to sell our apartment and find a new house to live in. And we’ll try to move right at the end of first term so you can spend summer break getting used to the new place and then start second term in your new school.”

Chihiro looked at him, stone-faced. It didn’t sound like anything she said would change her parents’ minds, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She could feel a sulk coming on. Chihiro’s sulks were infamous. Yes, she thought. Definitely at least a week long. It would serve them right for ruining her life like this.

* * *

The day Miki had been dreading had finally arrived. She had spent the past week patching up Haku’s clothes, drying and smoking filets of eel and fish, and making his favorite onigiri to take along with him on his journey. Haku, for his part, had been working from dawn till dusk cutting trees to create a stockpile of wood large enough to see the old couple through the next few months, both to use themselves and to sell at the market. He knew that during his time with the forest spirits, his hard work had helped them achieve a more comfortable lifestyle. He had fixed up their hut—patching the clay walls, replacing the worn floorboards, and re-thatching the rush roof—so that their home was now dry and no longer drafty. The garden he had planted for Miki was yielding a bounty of vegetables to eat now as well as to preserve for later. Haku could only hope that he had done enough to provide for them until he was able to come back or somehow send funds back to them. Although his destination was far away—at least a week’s journey by foot—he was determined to learn the magic he needed to transform himself back into a dragon. And after that, distance would never be a problem again.

He told Miki and Hinoki this when the time finally came for him to take his leave of them. “When I’m a dragon again,” he reassured them, “I’ll be able to come back in just a few hours’ flight.” Miki smiled through the tears that were now flowing freely down her face. “Remember,” she said. “Yubaba is crafty and greedy. She will try to control you and bend you to her will. You must make sure you keep a part of yourself—no matter how small—safe from her so you don’t fall completely under her thrall.” They had together decided that the better option was for Haku to seek out Yubaba instead of Zeniba. The bathhouse witch was known throughout the spirit world, and as the proprietor of Aburaya, the spirit world’s largest and most popular bathhouse, she was infinitely more accessible than her reclusive twin Zeniba. Not to mention that Zeniba had the reputation of being the more powerful and dangerous of the two sisters. “You don’t stand a chance against Zeniba, even if you did have any magic now,” Hinoki had told him. “According to all the stories we’ve heard about her, she’s one witch you don’t want to tangle with. Ruthless, they say.”

So Yubaba and Aburaya it was. Miki and Hinoki had briefed Haku as best they could on what they knew of the spirit world’s geography, and Haku had learned more from travelers he had encountered at the market. A few had even described with a sense of awed fervor the immense and splendid bathhouse on its own rocky island in the middle of a marsh, far to the west. The marsh would often be flooded so that it resembled a vast glassy sea, but there was a train that ran through it to the bathhouse. However, the nearest train stop—even if he had the money to buy a ticket—was still several days’ walk away. There were, Hinoki warned him, dangers along the way. The spirit world was inhabited by both harmless spirits—like those Haku had met in the market—and wild, malevolent yōkai or oni. Hinoki had spent several evenings by the fire painstakingly crafting a hanbō, a stout staff that he had cut himself from a branch of a great white oak that grew not far from the hut. The finished staff came up to Haku’s waist, and it served the dual purposes of defensive weapon and walking stick.

Armed with the hanbō and a small knife, and with his only belongings—a spare set of clothes and a week’s worth of food—wrapped into a thin grey blanket slung around his shoulders, Haku gave the old forest spirits one last, fierce hug, promised them he would return as soon as he could, and set off on his quest to find Yubaba.

* * *

The boy followed the river westward for the first day, until it turned north toward a snow-capped mountain range far off in the distance. The terrain had been flat and easy to traverse, so Haku had made good time. He had not, however, glimpsed a single spirit during the entire day. It was, in fact, the first time he had ever been alone since he had been a dragon—although even then, he had been so attuned to the various chi of his river’s denizens that he hadn’t been truly alone. This utter and absolute solitude was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and had it not been for the reassuring presence of the river beside him, he might have found it more disheartening than he actually did. Instead, he felt a liberating sense of light-heartedness and excitement. For the first time since he could remember, he had no one depending on him, no one waiting for him, no one’s expectations weighing on him. He was free to act on his own and for himself, to pursue his own desires and exercise his own will.

This newfound revelation left Haku feeling almost giddy, and he thought perhaps it was a good time to rest and find a place to camp for the night. The sun was slowly sinking toward the distant horizon, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be caught out in the open after dusk in unknown territory. He was reluctant to leave the familiarity of the river just yet; it had been his constant, his touchstone, almost his entire time in this world. He decided to make camp here at the wide bend of the river where it turned north, next to a tall willow hanging protectively over the water, its long tendril-like branches gently kissing the surface with every slight breeze. When night fell, he could climb up the trunk and sleep in the safety of the crook of the tree.

Haku crouched down by the bank of the river, refilling his flask and washing his hands in the clear, cool water. As ever, contact with the river soothed him, and he idly watched a school of slim silver fish part when he dipped his hands in, then merge back together as he lifted them out, as if nothing had happened at all. He wondered if he should try catching some fish for tonight’s dinner, taking advantage of the river while he could, and save his dried food for later. Making up his mind to do so, he undid the lower ties of his hakama and rolled up each pant leg to above his knees. Slowly wading into the middle of the river, he submerged his hands and waited patiently. Ten minutes later, he was rewarded with a fat struggling fish in his hands, which he expertly put out of its misery in a single smooth motion. He smiled as he cleaned and prepared the fish for roasting, remembering the first time he had tried fishing with his bare hands, just before he had met Miki. He’d come a long way since then.

Halfway through roasting the fish on a makeshift spit over the fire he’d made, Haku felt the back of his neck tingle. Jumping to his feet, hanbō in hand, he peered intently into the deepening gloom. At the edge of the fire’s light, he could just make out a small figure with cream and reddish fur and a short tail curling over its back. A bright red scarf the color of fresh blood was tied around its neck. It froze, caught in the act of creeping towards the warmth of the fire and the aroma of cooking fish, its peaked ears twitching slightly. Haku had seen dogs like this before in the other world, usually trotting gaily behind humans, whom they seemed devoted to. He knew, though, that this was no mortal dog. This was an inugami—a dog spirit created by someone with spiritual or magical powers.

Haku set down his staff to show he did not mean to harm the inugami. “It’s okay,” he called out. “You can come closer. I won’t hurt you.”

The little figure sniffed, as if to convey its contempt at the idea that it could ever be hurt by such a weak, human-looking spirit, but Haku suspected it was really to get a better idea of what other food he was carrying in his pack. Cautiously, the canine spirit approached the fire, then sat down on its haunches, just out of Haku’s reach. “Thanks,” it said in a gruff, male voice.

The two looked at the fire silently, Haku turning the fish over occasionally to make sure it cooked evenly over the flames. He could see the dog spirit eyeing it nonchalantly, trying not to let his hunger show.

“The fish won’t be ready for a while,” Haku spoke softly, not wanting to startle the inugami. “But I have some onigiri in my bag. You can have one if you’re hungry.”

The inugami turned to him in surprise. “Okay,” he said, almost grudgingly. “Yes, thanks.”

Haku smiled, then pulled out a large triangular-shaped ball of rice wrapped in a dried bamboo leaf. “My mother made these,” he said, unwrapping it and putting it on the ground in front of the inugami. “They’re one of my favorites.”

The inugami sniffed the onigiri almost delicately, then took a small bite from the top of the rice ball. His eyes closed in appreciation at the taste, and he finished the rest of the ball in two large gulps.

“Thank you,” he said again. “That was delicious.” He looked at Haku with frank curiosity in his eyes. “So, pardon me for asking, but what are you doing here? I’ve not seen anyone like you around here for a long time.”

Haku wondered what the inugami meant by “like you.” A human-looking spirit? A river spirit without a river? A dragon-turned-boy? He settled on giving the inugami an abridged version of the truth. “I was a river spirit in the other world, but the humans did something to my river, and I ended up here. Now I’m traveling to find someone who can teach me magic.” He left out the reason behind his desire to learn magic; the inugami was still a stranger, after all.

“Ah,” the canine head nodded wisely. “There are many beings in this world who could teach you a bit of magic. But you have the look of someone who wants to learn more than just a few tricks to amuse a crowd for some coin.”

Haku inclined his head slightly but didn’t speak. He was curious to see where this was going.

“You don’t trust me yet,” the inugami continued. “That’s smart. It’s a dangerous world, and you can’t always trust appearances. But you offered me your food freely, and in return I will offer you my story, as well as my advice. And then you can decide on your own whether to trust me.”

Haku nodded but then held up his hand, forestalling any further speech from the dog spirit. The fish was ready. He placed it on a flat stone he had cleaned off, took out his knife, and quickly sliced it in half. Using the edge of the knife, he scraped one half of the roasted fish onto the now empty bamboo leaf, then set it down in front of the inugami again. The next few minutes were silent as both dragon and dog spirits ate with gusto. When they were both finished, the inugami gave a long, satisfied sigh and settled his whole body down on the ground, his paws stretched out contentedly in front of him. Haku recognized that he was ready to begin his tale, and he too settled into a more comfortable position, wrapping his arms around his knees and propping his chin on top of them.

“My name is Ronin,” the inugami began. “I had another one given to me long ago, but I don’t use it now. My story begins over 200 years ago, in the human world, where I was born a mortal dog. I was adopted as a puppy by a powerful family. The head of the family was a regional magistrate, and his wife had been a priestess before she married. I had been brought into the family as a pet for their two daughters, who were known far and wide as the most beautiful girls in the land. They loved me dearly, and I loved them in return." The inugami closed his eyes and sighed at the memory of what was clearly a cherished time in his life.

"Their names were Zeniba and Yubaba.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments! It is truly a thrill to receive them and read them... and they keep me going with this story!
> 
> This chapter is again inspired by the Japanese folk tale "Momotaro-san," the beginning of which I recounted in the author's note for Chapter 3. In the rest of the tale, the woodcutter and his wife raise Momotaro until he is a big, strong boy. One day, Momotaro hears of an evil monster (an oni) terrorizing a village far away, and he decides to leave home to go kill the monster. On his journey there, he meets first a dog, then a monkey, and finally a rooster (all of them talk, of course). Momotaro gives each one of them a rice ball, and in turn they each agree to help him fight the monster. When they finally reach the village and confront the monster, the dog bites its legs, the monkey pulls its hair, and the rooster pecks at its eyes, distracting the monster long enough for Momotaro to kill it. The villagers reward Momotaro with gold for ridding them of the monster, and Momotaro returns with his three animal companions back to his parents' village, where they all live happily ever after.
> 
> Some versions of the story have Momotaro giving the animals millet balls or dumplings instead of rice balls, but my mother's version always had them as rice balls. Also, I couldn't resist the temptation to foreshadow the onigiri Haku gives to Chihiro in the movie! :-)


	6. The Inugami's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter has some adult themes and a mention of animal cruelty/torture and death in the last four paragraphs of the chapter. I've changed the rating to T to reflect this.

The inugami’s canine features settled into an unmistakable smirk at the startled gasp Haku could not hold back. This spirit actually knew Yubaba and Zeniba? More than that… he was their _pet_ once? Haku again felt the implacable arms of Fate tightening around him, heard her sibilant whispers that he could never escape her hold. He knew how this worked; he knew that it was no accident that he had met this inugami. And he knew that he would need the dog spirit’s help if he wanted to succeed in his quest.

“They were the sweetest mistresses a dog could ever wish for,” continued the inugami, closing his eyes and letting out a soft whimper at the memory. “They always fed me the most delicious scraps from their own dinners, and they took me everywhere with them. They laughed at my antics when I stole their temari balls and ran off into the courtyard to play with them. When they ventured outside for walks with their governess, they took turns carrying me so that I would not get my paws dirty. During the nights, I slept curled up between them in their own bed, and they would whisper their secrets to me while the rest of the household slept.”

Haku’s eyes widened. This description did not at all match anything he had heard about Yubaba and Zeniba from everyone he had talked to. But he kept silent, not wanting to dispel the inugami’s obvious pleasure in recalling those idyllic days with his mistresses.

In the silence, the inugami’s face slowly lost its dreamy expression as he lowered his head. When he raised it and looked at Haku again, it was as if a bubbling stream had frozen over, so devoid of emotion it had become. “All that changed,” Ronin said quietly, “when the girls turned sixteen. I was nearing the end of my mortal life then, and I spent most of my days sleeping in the warm sun. The girls were still kind to me, but all their time was taken up entertaining the masses of suitors that called on them, vying for their hand. Like I said, their beauty was celebrated throughout the land, and their father was determined to marry them into the best families, even nobility if he could.”

“The girls had different opinions on marriage,” Ronin continued. “Yubaba was always more interested in the material things in life, and even though the family was powerful and well-off, she still wanted more—more beautiful clothes, more fine jewelry, more grand furnishings, and an even larger and finer mansion than the one she grew up in.” The inugami chuckled ruefully. “I remember the arguments she and Zeniba would always have about all of Yubaba’s possessions. The breaking point came when one day Yubaba returned home from visiting a famous upholstery merchant in the city. She was followed by servants carrying two dozen colorful silk cushions, all of which were then artfully deposited onto the large bed that the sisters still shared then. When Zeniba went into the bedroom that night, she took one look at the bed, which had no room for either me or Zeniba in it anymore, and walked straight out of it again. The sisters never shared a room again after that. It was the beginning of the rift between them, one that still exists today, two centuries later.”

“So Yubaba saw marriage as a pathway to ensuring her future prosperity?” Haku asked, his curiosity piqued enough for him to risk interrupting Ronin’s narrative. As far as he knew, Yubaba _was_ rich, if the travelers’ awed descriptions of the mansion-like bathhouse and its luxurious interior were to be believed. And she was the sole proprietor, with no husband anyone had heard to speak of.

“Well, let’s just say that she was more amenable to the idea of marriage, especially since her beauty and her family’s social standing pretty much guaranteed that she would make a very favorable match. Zeniba, on the other hand, was not at all interested in suitors or in the prospect of marriage. She was far more interested in learning more about spiritual powers, and about _magic_.” Ronin stressed the last word deliberately, throwing a canny look at Haku while he waited for him to interject. He knew this part of the story would catch the boy’s attention, as he had intended it to. And indeed, Haku was watching him closely now, his jade eyes narrowing ever so slightly to indicate his displeasure at the inugami’s pause.

Haku knew that the inugami was trying to goad him into revealing more about his motivation for seeking out the bathhouse witch, and he was silently amused at the crudity of the attempt. When Ronin realized that Haku would not be tricked into speaking, he expelled a short sigh of resignation and continued his story. “Remember that I said their mother had been a priestess before her marriage? Well, unbeknownst to her husband, Matsu-sama had continued to practice her spiritual powers, and even more than that, her magic, after her marriage. Mainly it was for benevolent purposes, such as helping women maintain healthy pregnancies, or treating children and other townspeople when they were ill. No one knew she was using magic, of course. They thought of her as a talented and powerful healer. Zeniba was interested in her craft, so she started spending more and more time helping her mother. And so she gradually learned more and more magic.”

Haku was fascinated by the story but puzzled. Surely Yubaba knew magic as well? He hoped so, or else he would need to rethink his plans. But he resolved to listen to the rest of Ronin’s story, hoping more would become clear as it continued.

“Zeniba turned out to be as talented in magic as her mother was, although they both had to hide it, of course,” Ronin continued. “The human world back then did not offer women many opportunities to wield any sort of agency or power. The best they could do was make a good marriage, like Matsu-sama did, and operate behind the scenes. Their position as wives to powerful husbands would protect them. But even then, such protection was not infallible. If anyone—any _men_ , rather—had found out what Matsu-sama was really doing, not even her husband’s standing would have saved her.”

Haku raised an eyebrow at Ronin, wondering what it was the twins’ mother was doing that was so transgressive. The inugami shot him a conspiratorial look. “Let’s just say that Matsu-sama was helping not only those women who were pregnant, but also those who weren’t pregnant… and who _didn’t want to be_. In short, she was giving women control over their own bodies, something that their menfolk would have had been furious about, had they actually known about it. Part of it was herbs and medicine, of course. But much of it was magic—protective spells, wards, that sort of thing. She could weave her magic into simple everyday objects, like an innocent obi cord or even a hair tie, that women could wear without anyone suspecting anything. And she taught all of this to Zeniba, who quickly became as adept as her mother was in the magical arts, and as trusted by the women who came to them for help.”

Haku couldn’t keep silent anymore. He needed to know whether he was planning to approach the wrong sister. “So what about Yubaba?” he asked hesitantly. “The word in the spirit world is that she is a powerful witch as well. Did she not learn magic from her mother like Zeniba did?”

Ronin expelled a low huff that could have been the canine version of a chuckle. The question had confirmed his suspicion about the boy’s intended destination, although he still had no idea _why_ Haku wanted Yubaba to teach him magic. Plenty of time for that, he thought to himself. For now, he still had a story to finish.

“Well,” the inugami answered, shifting so that he faced Haku more squarely, as his expression turned more serious. “It did not escape Yubaba’s attention that Zeniba was always so distant whenever they had to entertain their numerous suitors, nor that she was spending so much time with their mother. But Yubaba wasn’t really interested in what they were doing, even though she had a strong suspicion Matsu-sama was using magic and teaching it to Zeniba. That is... until she wanted something she couldn’t get on her own.”

Ronin sighed. They were getting to a part of the story that was not his rightfully to tell. If Haku decided to listen to him and follow his advice, he would take him to the one whose tale it truly was. But he did need to say something now to the boy who was clearly hanging onto every word. He considered his next words carefully. “There was one suitor, the eldest son of a magistrate in the neighboring prefecture. He was not the first choice of the girls’ father, who was holding out hope that one of the local daimyo’s sons would take an interest in the girls. But Yubaba took one look at him—he was extremely handsome—and fell for him. Hard. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t nobility, or that his family’s status wasn’t higher than her own. He was young, tall, well-made, and his eyes twinkled when he teased the girls, which he never failed to do every time he came to visit them.”

“And he loved Zeniba, not Yubaba.”

Haku gasped softly. He couldn’t deny that his interest in the inugami’s tale was well and truly piqued by now. Ronin knew it too, and he flashed a wolfish grin at the boy. “And Zeniba,” Haku asked. “Did she love him back?”

The inugami shook his head. “So much pain and strife could have been avoided if that damned baka had just fallen in love with Yubaba instead. No, Zeniba did not love him. To tell the truth, I think by then she was so enamored with magic and all the possibilities it opened up to her that marriage—or bondage, as she saw it—to a middling magistrate’s son was never going to appeal to her. And so the rift between the sisters grew wider. And that was when Yubaba turned to her mother and begged her to teach her magic.”

“Matsu-sama said no, of course,” Ronin sighed. “She knew that Yubaba’s intent was to use magic to bend the will of the man she wanted, to make him to fall in love with her instead of Zeniba. As her mother, Matsu-sama knew exactly what her daughter was like. Yubaba wanted luxury and riches, yes. But what she really wanted, her mother knew, was _power_. Power over others. Power to make people fall in love with her, to make them serve her purposes. And so she refused to teach Yubaba any magic.”

Haku looked at Ronin in surprise, but waited silently for him to continue. “But even back then, Yubaba was crafty. Even without magic, she knew enough about people’s weaknesses, their pressure points, and how to use them to her advantage. And she knew her mother’s weakness: the secret that she and Zeniba were using magic to give women some agency over their own lives. Yubaba knew that this knowledge, were it to be made public, would ruin not only her mother but also her sister. And so she threatened to tell her father and the other magistrates in the town. Matsu-sama had no choice but to teach Yubaba all the magic she knew.”

Ronin stopped speaking and glanced at the boy, who was raptly watching his small companion, eager for him to continue this fascinating tale. The inugami knew this was the moment he had been waiting for.

“So there you have the two sisters. One who learned magic to help and protect others. One who learned magic to control others and bend them to her own will.” Ronin’s voice had taken on a deliberately neutral tone, as if he were an examiner testing a prized pupil but not wanting to betray any sign of favoritism. He raised his head and fixed his steady gaze on the boy’s face. “And you, river spirit with no river. What is _your_ motivation for learning magic?”

Haku closed his eyes and listened to the sounds around him. He could hear the hissing crackle of the fire before him, the gentle burble of the river not far away, the soft breathing of the dog spirit next to him. He realized, as he tried to open up his senses and take in even more—to hear the splashing of individual fish as they swam through the river, to feel the vibrations in the ground as the insects crawled over it, to smell the rain pregnant in clouds that were too far away to see—that his attempt was doomed to fail. He was no longer a dragon. His senses, his whole being, were but poor, dull shadows of what they had once been. He thought again of Miki and Hinoki’s story of the shadow people. How was he any different, as he was now, from one of them?

“I want to learn magic,” he finally began, but then hesitated. He didn’t know how to continue.

“For what purpose?” pressed the inugami. “Think carefully. How you answer now determines your path from here on.”

Haku took a deep breath, then dove into his answer with his exhale. “I want to be a dragon again,” he affirmed. “I want to feel that power again. I want to soar, to feel the wind caressing my body as I slice through the air. I want to be fearsome, to be feared again. To not feel so powerless anymore.”

Ronin peered up at the boy’s face again, taking in the fervent gleam in his green eyes. “And is that it? No other reason?” he asked.

For no reason that Haku could understand, he suddenly recalled the image of a dusky sky full of fireflies. The feeling of two small hands wrapped tightly around his horns. _To protect someone_ , a quiet voice whispered from a dark corner of his mind. He pushed it back. Yes, he had been a god, and he had been the guardian of countless lives in his river. But that was no more. His river was gone, and he would never get it back. He had to live in this world now, and if he couldn’t live as a guardian or god, he could at least live as a powerful dragon.

“No,” he said firmly to the inugami. “No other reason.”

Ronin gazed at the boy searchingly, then slowly nodded. “In that case,” he said, “you will need Yubaba. She is the master of transformation spells. And she understands the desire for power. But you will need my help. I will guide you to her, and I will advise you on how to convince her to take you on as an apprentice.”

Haku looked back at the inugami, curious once again. “Why are you helping me? And what happened in the rest of the story? Did Yubaba ever manage to make that man fall in love with her?”

“That’s not my tale to tell,” Ronin answered. “But tomorrow we will set out to find the one who can tell you that story.” The inugami stared into the fire for a few moments, as if trying to come to a decision about something. Finally, he spoke again. “As to why I’m helping you... I never said how I came to this world.”

Haku shook his head. He had assumed the dog spirit had always lived in the spirit world, but that wasn’t right. Ronin had said he’d been born a mortal dog. And he’d lived with Yubaba and Zeniba in the other world.

“Have you ever heard how an inugami is made?” Ronin asked, keeping his voice carefully dispassionate, as if he were asking whether Haku wanted some tea. Haku shook his head slowly, but a suspicion was starting to form in his mind. His face slowly blanched as he realized what the inugami was about to say.

“Well, just like you were sent here to the spirit world through an act of violence to your river, I was sent here through an act of violence to my mortal body. But while your violence was done to you by humans who were strangers to you, mine was done to me by one of the humans I loved most in the world.” He paused, closing his eyes in memory of the pain that had been inflicted on him so long ago.

“Yubaba starved me to death, then cut off my head," Ronin growled out harshly. "That is how one makes an inugami. She sent me here to the spirit world as an experiment, to see if it could be done. I loved and trusted her, and she betrayed me. That is why I call myself Ronin now. I have no mistresses anymore.”

The look in the inugami’s eyes grew as cold as steel, even as the red of his scarf darkened in the shadows thrown by the dying firelight, deepening it to the color of old blood.

“That is why I am helping you, dragon.” Ronin spoke so quietly that Haku had to strain to hear his words. “So that you can get close to her, and then in turn betray her too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out a bit darker than I was initially expecting it to be, although I knew the part about how inugami are made would be hard to write. I tried to keep that part as blunt and short as possible. The theme of characters naming themselves continues in this chapter; ronins were samurai in the feudal era who had lost their master and were therefore forced to roam the country without purpose.
> 
> More of the twins' backstory will be revealed in the next few chapters, as Haku and Ronin travel on and meet the other two animals (or their animal spirit equivalents) from the Momotaro-san folk tale.


	7. The Journey Continues

The next day dawned clear and cold, the first pale beams of light dancing across Haku’s face as he reluctantly opened his eyes. His limbs were stiff and chilled from his first unsheltered night since shortly after he had arrived in the spirit world, and he reached his arms above his head to stretch them out. His movement woke the warm furry body curled up against his side. The inugami lifted his head lazily, then set it back down on the ground and stretched all four legs out while still lying on his side. Haku smiled at the canine’s carefree gesture, which seemed so far removed from the intense bitterness he had displayed the night before. Haku sat up and reached over for his pack, rummaging through its meager contents for some dried fish. He handed a piece wordlessly to Ronin, who rolled up onto his stomach and took it gingerly with his teeth. The two ate their breakfast in silence, both thinking of what had been revealed the evening before, and what lay ahead of them on their journey.

Finally, Ronin spoke. “I know you want to continue west towards the bathhouse,” he said. “But first we need to take a detour north, to the mountains.”

Haku looked at him, dismayed. The mountains to the north were a good two days' walk away. “What is there that’s so important for us to find?”

Ronin looked at him, smiling at his impatience. “I may not be older than you, dragon,” he remarked, “but I’ve lived much longer in this world than you have, and I know Yubaba. If you want to face her, you need ammunition.” He grinned at the wary look that crossed Haku’s face. “Not that type of ammunition,” he chuckled. “You need to think like Yubaba, be crafty like her. Understand her pressure points. You can be sure she’ll try to use yours, if she finds any.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Haku declared, although he stopped himself before continuing. Once again, an image arose unbidden to the forefront of his mind, this time that of a little pink shoe being carried away by a strong current. He shook his head as if to dispel it, then continued. “And I have nothing she can use to control me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Ronin said. “Yubaba will certainly find some way to control you. You never told me your name.”

Haku blinked at the non sequitur. The inugami was right; he’d never introduced himself last night. “I call myself Haku here,” he said slowly. “But I don’t remember my real name. My name in the other world, I mean.”

“Ah,” said the inugami thoughtfully. “That will be interesting, then. Usually Yubaba controls people by taking away their names. I’m not sure what she’ll do when she finds out you don’t remember yours. But I’m sure that she’ll find some alternate means of controlling you.”

Haku raised an eyebrow to signal his doubt at the statement, but let it go. It was true that he had no idea how powerful the witch was, and it was foolish to underestimate her capabilities without understanding more about them… and about her. He decided to return to their earlier topic. “So why the mountains? You never said.”

“Right,” the inugami answered. “As I was saying, you need ammunition if you’re to face Yubaba. I will provide you with some, but I’m taking you to someone who will provide you with even more. Someone who can fill in the blanks in the story I told you last night.”

Haku nodded silently. He had many questions about the inugami’s story, not only about Yubaba and the man she fell in love with, but also about why she had wanted to send Ronin to the spirit world, and what he had been doing since then. Ronin didn’t seem inclined to provide any further answers, but Haku could be patient. He had a two-day journey ahead with the dog spirit, even if they made good time. They couldn’t possibly spend that whole time in silence, Haku reasoned.

And yet, it certainly seemed like the inugami intended just for that to happen. After they finished eating, the inugami stood by patiently as Haku wrapped the remaining food back up into his makeshift pack and prepared to leave. He was secretly glad they were going north, as it meant he could follow the river a bit longer. The two set out toward the mountain range, the inugami’s tail curled jauntily over its back, adopting a steady yet brisk pace. Neither spoke. The only sounds for the rest of the morning were the melodic murmurs of the river next to them and the regular thumps of Haku’s staff hitting the soft ground.

As the sun reached its peak in the sky, the inugami stopped and turned to Haku. “Shall we rest for a bit and have a bite to eat?” Haku nodded, shrugging his pack off his shoulders and setting it down on the ground next to him. “I can catch some fish for us,” he offered. The inugami’s face lit up, appreciating the usefulness of a traveling companion who possessed opposable thumbs. The boy smiled as he rolled up his hakama and ventured into the water, returning in a short time with a fish in his hands. He looked around, dismayed at the lack of trees around them. As they had progressed northwards, the landscape had become rockier and more barren. No trees meant no firewood, which meant the fish would have to be eaten raw. Haku smiled wryly at himself, surprised at the reluctance he felt accompanying that thought. He hadn’t eaten any raw meat since he had arrived in the spirit world, but if he was going to be a dragon again, he would have to get used to it once more.

Haku sliced the fish in half and placed Ronin’s portion on the ground in front of him. The dog spirit nodded his head in thanks, then eagerly attacked his meal. Haku gingerly took a bite of his half of the fish. It wasn’t too bad, and he found that he did remember how much he enjoyed the feel of the cool flesh slipping down his throat. Perhaps it wasn’t too bad an idea to start doing more of the things he had done as a dragon, to prepare for the day he could finally become one again. He looked down at his hands, imagining long claws in the place of his neatly trimmed fingernails. He would need to learn to fight again, too. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he stopped himself. Why would he need to fight, he wondered, when he had nothing to protect anymore?

The boy’s silent musings were interrupted when Ronin, having finished his fish, spoke suddenly. “I hardly ever get the chance to indulge in fish,” he said. “Catching fish is one of the things I never learned to do when I had to figure out how to hunt for myself here in the spirit world.”

Haku turned to him, smiling in empathy. “Yes,” he remarked. “It was an experience for me too. I mean, I knew how to catch fish when I was a dragon. But it’s quite a different thing to do so shaped like a human.”

“You had to learn how to do things in an entirely new body,” the inugami observed. “That must have been tough. I at least kept my same form. But I had never had to provide for myself before. Those first few days of my new life here in this world, they were… difficult.”

Haku hummed in sympathy but otherwise kept silent, not wanting to distract the inugami from his story. “Unlike you,” the inugami continued, “I arrived in the civilized part of the spirit world. Here in the east the spirit world is sparsely populated. Much of it is just open space, and you can go days, as we likely will, without seeing too many other spirits. To the west is civilization. Towns, markets, bathhouses even. The first thing I remember was waking up at a crossroads not far outside a market town. I was starving. I followed my nose to the market in the center of town. The smell of meats, fish, and even freshly baked bread was almost too much for me to handle. But no one gave a second glance at me, scraggly and half-dead as I must have looked. I tried begging for scraps at all the stalls, only to be kicked away or even pelted by stones. In the end, I crawled into a small alley and curled up, waiting to die.”

“But you didn’t,” said Haku gently. “Because spirits can’t die here. Not unless we really want to. So at least a very little part of you must have wanted to continue living.”

“Yes,” answered Ronin soberly. “I didn’t die. I survived. I learned how to steal food when I could, and hunt when I couldn’t. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Even if I couldn’t find food, it didn’t matter. I might be starving, but I cannot die. I don’t know if this immortality is a blessing or a curse. I’m not even sure if Yubaba thought about that when she made me an inugami. The inugami that are created to stay in the human world and serve their human masters are indeed immortal. But Yubaba’s spell was different, since she intended for me to cross over here to the spirit world. I don’t think she really thought or planned much beyond sending me here… and then sending herself and her lover after me.”

Ronin caught the spark of interest in Haku’s eyes and grinned, flashing his sharp canines at the boy. “But that’s not my story to tell, as I’ve told you before. Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough. And speaking of that, we should get going. We’ve still got a ways to go, and the terrain’s not going to get any easier.”

* * *

The inugami was right about the terrain, Haku thought ruefully as the two of them stood on an outcropping of rock halfway up the mountain, looking out at the wide valley below them. They had walked for the remainder of the day before and another full morning before they had reached this mountain and started their challenging journey upwards. Now, they were rewarded for the afternoon’s exertions with the incomparable view before them. The sun had sunk low into the horizon, magically transforming the sky into heart-achingly beautiful swaths of burnt orange, dusky rose, and deep indigo. They watched in silence as the sun finally dipped out of view and darkness descended over the valley, allowing the first stars of the night to seemingly wink into existence.

Haku was tired. His time cutting down trees with Hinoki had built up the muscles in his back and arms, but not so much in his legs, which were unused to the rigors of the seemingly endless climb they were forced to endure that afternoon, and which now threatened to buckle under him in protest. Thankfully, they were still following the river, which had become both narrower and livelier as it gained in elevation, and the joyous song of the water as it careened over and around the rocks was a balm to Haku’s spirit even if not to his weary body. The boy was also grateful for the return of trees to the landscape, as it meant they could build a fire to keep themselves warm in the rapidly chilling night.

Ronin, who had kept up a demanding pace throughout the past two days, finally sat down on his haunches, sighing as he stretched his legs out in front of him. Haku joined him, grateful for the chance to rest. Ronin had seemed quite familiar with the path up the mountain they were taking and had pointed out some of the local spirits his keen eyes had noticed: a graceful-looking creature that looked like a cross between a mountain goat and a deer; a fat beaver-like spirit that had splashed into the river as they got closer; and a furry, chittering thing Haku had never seen before that had scurried across their path before vanishing up a tree. None of them seemed inclined to approach the travelers or speak with them, which Haku found slightly strange. Ronin, however, didn’t seem bothered by the spirits’ indifference, if that’s what it was, so Haku decided not to question it.

“We can set up camp here,” Ronin spoke up. “If we make a fire here tonight, he’ll know where we are, and with any luck, he’ll come here and save us from having to trek the rest of the way tomorrow.”

“He?” questioned Haku, although he had a good idea who it might be.

“Yes, the one we’re looking for,” answered the dog spirit. “We’re in _his_ territory now, and I’m sure our spirit friends we saw earlier will have told him about us by now. He has his spies all over this mountain. We’ll be seeing him soon enough. Let’s rest now, and have our dinner. You did well today, for someone with only two legs,” the inugami smirked at the boy.

Haku threw his companion an exasperated look before stiffly standing up and heading back toward the trees to find some fallen branches to serve as firewood. When he returned with an armful, he saw that the inugami had already cleared a space on the flat rocky ground and set some kindling he had found into its center. With little effort, Haku soon lit a fire. He looked around, at the treeline behind them and the valley below them. He felt extremely exposed on this outcropping; anyone around them could see their fire, and by extension, them. He glanced at Ronin, but the inugami seemed unworried, more interested in the food in Haku’s pack than in any potential danger that might be out there.

Haku decided he had to trust in the inugami’s judgement. He unwrapped his pack and pulled out a few large pieces of dried fish, handing one of them to Ronin. They ate in silence, both too weary from the day’s long journey to engage in any conversation. By the time both of them had finished their dinner, the flames had dwindled down to languid flickers, but neither spirit had the energy to get up and find more firewood. They both lay down as close as they could next to the dying fire, as if jealously coveting the last of its heat, and, curling up against each other for warmth, quickly fell into an exhausted sleep.

* * *

They were woken up the next morning by a low, harsh chuckle. “Well, well, Ronin,” an amused voice came from somewhere above them. “I would never have expected this of you. I thought you’d sworn off masters and mistresses for good, and yet here you are, cuddled up against the first human you’ve found.”

The inugami jumped to his feet, hackles raised and growling softly. Haku sat up more slowly, eyes narrowed and focused on the strange figure before them. It was the size and shape of a large ape, but it was standing upright and wearing a blue haori over dark brown hakama. It grinned widely at the pair, showing off its razor-sharp teeth. Haku suddenly remembered the old forest spirits’ warning about the sarugami, monkey spirits who dwelled in the mountains. They were generally known to be bad-tempered and best avoided. Despite the sarugami’s jovial tone and smile, Haku watched the figure warily. He would, the boy knew, be a fierce opponent if it came down to a fight. He wished he could reach for his hanbō without calling attention to the move.

“Takehito, you baka!” snapped the inguami. “Can’t you see this is no human? This is Haku. He’s a river spirit who’s lost his river in the other world. We were coming to see you.”

“Oh?” the sarugami drawled lazily, training his curious eyes onto the boy. Haku flushed slightly under the other’s sharp assessing gaze but stood up stiffly and returned the look steadily. “And to what do I owe this honor? I’ve never been graced by a visit from a mighty river spirit before, even one who has so tragically misplaced his river,” Takehito said as he made an extravagant bow, a mocking smile on his lips.

“Oh, stop it,” groused Ronin. “Look, we need your help. Haku here needs to learn magic, real magic, and I’m helping him. We’re headed to Aburaya.” A look of shock and something else Haku couldn’t identify fleeted across Takehito’s face, to be quickly replaced by a carefully calculated blankness.

“That’s right, my old friend,” Ronin continued, his voice suddenly serious and strangely gentle. “He’s here to hear your story. You need to tell him him about your son… and his mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to get to the sarugami's story in this chapter, but it ended up being too long, so we'll get it in the next chapter. I think you've all probably figured out who Takehito is, though. :-) I had a hard time coming up a name for him, but I ended up with one that could be translated as "mountain prince," which I thought was very apt for him.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who left kudos or a comment (or both)! I really can't say how wonderful and encouraging it is to receive them. Work has really been kicking my butt these past few months, so I haven't been able to update this story as often as I want, but I'm hoping to get a lot more written over the holidays, so stay tuned!


	8. The Sarugami's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: some adult themes, and some of the content in this chapter could potentially be interpreted as dubious consent.

Ronin glanced at his travel companion, whose look of utter stupefaction perfectly complemented the look of shock and apprehension that crossed the sarugami’s face at the same time. The inugami felt a momentary twinge of guilt at being the cause of such pain to his old friend, but it could not be helped. Haku needed to hear Takehito’s story, even if it meant reopening old wounds that had never fully healed.

“Ah,” sighed the sarugami finally, having recovered enough of his composure to speak calmly, despite the cesspool of emotions bubbling just under the surface. “It’s not a short story, and certainly not one that should be told out here in the open. Plus, I’ll need a drink or four to lubricate the soul.” He looked hopefully at the two. “You wouldn’t happen to have brought anything?”

Ronin shot a look of exaggerated disapproval at his friend. “The sun has barely risen, Takehito. And no, we don’t have anything for you to drink. Although Haku here has the most amazingly delicious onigiri. Maybe your story will earn you a taste of one.” He grinned at Haku, who looked offended at the idea that he wouldn’t freely offer his food.

“Please,” Haku spoke to the sarugami for the first time. “I would be honored to share my food with you, story or no. But I will admit I’ve been intrigued by what Ronin has told me so far about you. I would like to hear more, if you’re willing to share.”

Takehito looked at the boy thoughtfully, then nodded in acquiescence. “Come, let’s go. As I said before, this is not the place for baring one’s soul. We’ll be more comfortable at my place.” He grinned and winked at the two of them. “Plus, I know I can find something to drink there that should go quite well with this famous onigiri of yours.”

Haku followed the dog and monkey spirits as they walked alongside each other, exchanging good-natured jibes and laughter as they wound an unseen path further up the mountain. It seemed as though the two hadn’t seen each other for a while, so Haku hung back a bit, wanting to give them some privacy to catch up on their lives. He wondered at the strange tie between the two spirits, who, according to Ronin’s story, hadn’t really known each other well in the other world. Something must have happened in this world to bind them together like this, Haku mused. A shared tragedy… or a shared hatred? Had Takehito been wronged by Yubaba as well?

Haku shook his head at himself. As a guardian river spirit, he had never been interested in the lives of humans before, considering them petty and below his notice. Even if he had wanted to know humans better, it would have been a waste of his time and effort, since their lives were all so _short_. And before he’d ended up here, he hadn’t really known many other spirits either. Certainly, he had battled others occasionally, to defend his territory or his river’s inhabitants; that was part of his job as a guardian spirit. But he’d never had _friends_. He stopped, surprised at the realization of how solitary his old life had been. True, there had been the countless lives he had watched over and protected, but they weren’t his equals. He’d never experienced a comradeship like the one Ronin and Takehito seemed to possess. He’d always set himself apart from others… even at times with his foster parents here in this world, although he supposed they were the closest beings to him he’d ever known. 

Now, as he watched the easy camaraderie between the inugami and sarugami, Haku felt for the first time a strange pang—a feeling of something missing from his life that he hadn’t fully realized until this moment. He wasn’t sure yet of the monkey spirit’s intentions, but he found himself being taken in by his sly wit and undeniable charm. It wasn’t hard to understand why Yubaba had fallen for him (even if he had no idea what he’d looked like as a human), and he began to wonder why Zeniba had been able to resist his affections. The inugami too, for all his gruffness and world-weary manner, was an agreeable and dedicated companion. Haku smiled to himself, contemplating the fascinating possibilities of developing new relationships he’d never considered before. He walked on, entrenched in his own thoughts, and as a result almost ran straight into the other two, who had stopped in front of a narrow opening in a bluff on the side of the mountain.

“Here we are,” boomed the sarugami. “Come on inside. I’ve made you hike all this way on an empty stomach, so you must been ravenous.” He made an elaborate bow much like the one he had given Haku earlier, but without any hint of mockery this time. “I would be a poor host if I didn’t feed you right away.”

The mention of food caused both Haku and Ronin’s stomachs to rumble in anticipation, and they eagerly followed the sarugami into a large and surprisingly airy cave. There was a small sleeping area set against the back wall of the cave, with a modest pallet-like bed stuffed with pine needles and partly covered by fur skins. In the middle of the cave was a small ring of medium-sized stones outlining a cooking hearth, with a large sturdy wooden spit hovering above it. There was a small pot hanging from the spit, and Haku’s face lit up when he caught the delectable aroma of some sort of stew emanating from it. In a few deft motions, the monkey spirit had unbanked the coals and lit the fire again, suggesting that he hadn’t planned to leave his meal for long before he'd left that morning.

“Sit, sit,” Takehito said, gesturing to some woven mats that were scattered on the ground around a roughly-made chabudai. “This will be warm again in just a little bit.” The two spirits settled down at the table, and Haku set his pack on the low surface, unwrapping it to pull out another bamboo leaf-wrapped packet of onigiri. The sarugami grinned at the offering, then placed some carved wooden bowls on the table. Looking around, Haku wondered at the simple but effective furnishings of Takehito’s home. Unlike Ronin, the monkey spirit had been human once, and it seemed he had retained his human predilections—at least in regards to his living style—as well as the knowledge and manual dexterity to create and surround himself with the trappings of his former life.

Takehito caught the boy’s appraising glance, and a wry look crossed his simian features. “I don’t have many guests over,” he admitted, “but I do like my comfort. I’m still human enough, on the inside at least, to miss things like soft beds and running water. But it’s not too bad here. There’s a hot spring not far away, if you want to bathe after our meal. You look like you’ve been traveling a while. And yes, by that I do mean that you kind of stink." He smirked at the boy as he ladled some stew into the waiting bowls on the table and then sat down on the last remaining mat. “Itadakimasu,” he intoned, reaching for one of the onigiri Haku had placed in the middle of the chabudai.

Both Haku and Ronin looked amused at the phrase, a distinctly human utterance that bore further witness to the sarugami’s own admission. Neither of them said anything in return, but Haku quickly bowed his head in a gesture of thanks. They ate swiftly and silently, although Takehito did release a murmur of pleasure at his first bite of onigiri, much to Haku’s quiet satisfaction. He doubted the sarugami would ever make light of Miki’s cooking skills again.

After Takehito ensured that his guests had eaten their fill, he brought out a small pitcher of sake, two cups, and a saucer for Ronin. Both monkey and dog spirits grinned widely at the boy, who eyed the rice wine before him with an apprehensive look on his face. He’d never had alcohol before, and all he’d known about it was that it made humans stupid and reckless. He wasn’t quite sure why they would ever want to partake of it. But he was a guest, and it would be impolite to refuse, so he accepted the cup Takehito poured for him. “Kanpai!” Takehito lifted his cup at the other two before drinking. Haku sipped carefully at the liquid, making a face at the taste, then blushed as Takehito and Ronin laughed good-naturedly at him.

“So,” Ronin prompted as Takehito started on his second cup, having thrown back his first one in a single gulp that made Haku’s eyes widen. “Your soul is now well on its way to being lubricated. Want to begin your story now?”

The sarugami made a resigned grimace that somehow lent his simian features a more human expression. Haku tried to imagine the handsome young human man he must have once been. He took another sip of his sake. The taste was not so bad once you got used to it, and he rather liked the feeling of warmth that was starting to spread through his body. He placed both elbows on the chabudai and rested his chin on top of his clasped hands, looking expectantly at Takehito.

“Well, I guess I’ll start where Ronin left off,” the monkey spirit began, as he meditatively swirled the liquid around in his cup. “He told me he had gotten to the point where Yubaba blackmailed her mother into teaching her magic.” Haku nodded. “Of course, I knew nothing about that back then. All I knew was that one day, when I came to pay a visit to the sisters like I did quite frequently back then, only Yubaba was there. She made some excuse for her sister, something about Zeniba helping her mother deliver a baby. I expected to be disappointed and resigned to spending the afternoon with the sister I didn’t like. But to my surprise, I wasn’t.”

Takehito shot an assessing glance at the boy, wondering how much he knew about the complicated and delicate dance that took place between a human man and a human woman who were attracted to each other. Romantic relationships between spirits, he knew from his time here, were much freer and simpler, with few taboos or social restrictions. Something told him that the boy in front of him hadn’t had much personal experience with desire or romantic love, either here or in the other world. Well, he shrugged mentally, it wasn’t like he was the guardian of the boy’s innocence.

“Something changed that day, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized what it was,” the sarugami continued. “I began to see Yubaba differently. The way her hair would float gently over her shoulders and ripple down her back in flaxen waves. The way her hazel eyes would gaze at me so earnestly before sparking with mischief as she thought of something teasing to say. The way her mouth curved into the slyest but most irresistible smile when she realized she finally had me at her complete and utter mercy. It wasn’t long before I found myself kneeling in dogeza in front of her father, declaring my love for Yubaba and asking for his permission to marry her.”

Takehito sighed and brought the cup he was holding up to his wide lips, then tipped its entire contents into his mouth. Haku reached for the pitcher and filled the cup up again as soon as the monkey spirit set it back down on the table. “Unfortunately,” Takehito grimaced, “Yubaba’s father was not pleased by my request. I was, after all, just the son of a magistrate like himself, and he had set his sights a bit higher for his daughters. As soon as he gave his refusal, Yubaba rushed out from where she had been hiding behind the shoji and threw herself down on her knees next to me, pleading for his approval. I must admit my heart had never been so full as it was at that moment, seeing her prostrated on the tatami, proclaiming her love for me for all to hear.”

Haku blinked in amazement. He could not reconcile this lovestruck version of Yubaba with the cold and calculating witch he’d heard so much about from Ronin and others. Takehito noted his expression and chuckled. “To be fair, I do think she thought of herself as in love with me, back then. And I do think she was in earnest about wanting to marry me and spend her life with me. But even then, there was something calculated about her action and words, although of course I didn’t realize it at the time. She knew how to wheedle her father into giving her what she wanted; she’d been doing it her whole life. And she probably would have succeeded in getting her way that time too, if it hadn’t been for her mother, Matsu-sama.”

Takehito glanced over at Ronin, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod of his furry head. “Ronin’s told you about how Matsu-sama was coerced into teaching Yubaba magic… magic to get what she wanted—namely me. Even though Matsu-sama couldn’t prevent her daughter from using that magic on me, she could still try to prevent some of the consequences of her actions. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, she was trying to save me, using her own influence over her husband to prevent us from being married. She wanted to prevent me from entering a contract against my own free will, even though it’s what I thought I desired with my whole being. I had no idea of any of this at the time, of course. All I could do was despair as Yubaba’s father held fast against our pleas, and I had no choice but to withdraw, my suit rejected. I was no longer welcome in his household, so I returned back to my own village to try to forget about Yubaba as best as I could.”

The sarugami paused in his story and looked again at Ronin, who had a grim expression on his face. Something unspoken passed between the two of them, then Takehito reached over and laid his hand gently on the inugami’s head, just above the scarlet scarf. Haku wondered silently at the interaction between the two but did not speak. After a moment, the dog spirit spoke up gruffly. “Go on. I’m okay. He knows what happened. He needs to hear the rest.” Takehito nodded and, lifting his hand from the inugami’s head, continued with his story.

“For the first few weeks after I returned home I was despondent, not knowing how I would be able to continue my life without her. Then time passed, and I threw myself back into my work, intent on distracting myself with the studies I had neglected when I started to court the sisters. I did not forget about Yubaba, but as each day went by the longing grew a bit fainter, until finally I could think about her without my heart twisting in pain. And then one day, three full months after we had last seen each other, she showed up.”

Takehito looked across the table at the boy, who was watching him with widened jade eyes that looked too large and otherworldly for his delicate human face. He asked gently, “Have you ever been in love?” Haku shook his head slowly, although for some reason it felt as if he wasn’t being entirely truthful, even to himself. “Well,” the sarugami smiled, “there’s nothing in this world or the other that compares to the joy you feel when you see your beloved after a long period apart. There’s a transcendent moment, when you first lay eyes upon them again, that feels utterly unreal, like your brain is refusing to believe what your eyes are trying to tell it. It feels like time has stopped, like your breath has been stolen away, and you’re rooted to the spot, unable to speak or move, just staring at them, drinking in their presence. And then, you find yourself suddenly _whole_ again, and it’s such a shock, as if you hadn’t realized you were walking around like a broken thing before. That’s what it felt like when I was suddenly face-to-face with Yubaba again. I don’t know how long I must have stared stupidly at her, but after a while I gathered my wits enough to invite her inside. She refused. She had come, she said, to ask me to elope with her. I could leave with her right then, or never see her ever again.”

Ronin snorted and muttered something under his breath. Haku wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he caught the words “drama” and “typical.” Takehito ignored his friend and continued. “I thought I had moved on, but it took only a few breathless seconds to realize that I was still completely enamored and would follow her down to hell if she asked me to. But she simply asked me to pack some clothes and money, and she waited for me outside on the engawa while I did so. When I was ready, we started walking back towards her town. It was then that I realized she was alone, the first time I’d ever seen her without her sister, her servants, or even her constant companion, her little shiba inu. She had come all the way to my village by herself. I started to ask her about it, but she dismissed my worries, saying she had been perfectly safe, and that no one had seen her. We walked for a little while in silence, then all at once, we had reached the crossroads outside her town, a good day’s journey away. Before I could wonder how we’d gotten there, she stopped, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply, holding up one hand to forestall my questions. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and smiled at me. ‘Come,’ she said, taking my hand and pulling me after her, but not in the direction of her town. Instead, we took one of the other roads, passing by a small patch of disturbed earth that I had never seen there before.”

Takehito stopped and glanced at Ronin, who was looking stonily ahead of him. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Haku felt a pang of grief accompanied by a quick blaze of anger as he realized what had happened at that crossroads so long ago, and his heart ached for his small canine friend. Takehito began again, his voice more somber than before, but now also holding a note of reverence. “We walked for a while on this unfamiliar road, hand in hand like children, and soon it was twilight. This was the hour that my grandmother always called ōmagatoki, when the veil between the spirit and the human worlds is at its most fragile, and it isn’t safe to be outside, lest you encounter an evil spirit. But I didn’t care. I was with the woman I loved, and we were together. Nothing else mattered. When night finally fell and it was dark enough to see the stars, there were so many more than I had ever noticed before, and each one seemed to shine with the intensity of a million suns. I remember gazing up at them in rapture, drinking them in as if I were a blind man who had suddenly gotten his eyesight back. When I looked back down at the woman next to me, she laughed, delighted at my wonder, and then pointed ahead. There, in the middle of nowhere, was a small cottage surrounded by a copse of slim silver birches, smoke curling from its brick chimney. ‘We are home,’ Yubaba said, as she led me towards my new life.”

Takehito closed his eyes and stopped speaking, caught up in his bittersweet memory, centuries old yet still seemingly fresh in his mind. After a while, he began again, still keeping his eyes closed. “I don’t know how much time passed as we lived together in that cottage. Weeks, months, years maybe. Time had no meaning in the face of our love for each other. And we did love, as a man and a woman love each other. We did not marry, and for some reason that did not trouble either of us. We were living outside social norms, outside the expectations of our parents and others, outside the lives we had known before. We saw no one else in that whole time, and for some reason I never thought to question it. We kept the gold that I had brought under a floorboard, but we never needed it. Somehow, food and drink would appear when we were hungry or thirsty, as would new clothes when what we had brought wasn’t enough. Everything we needed was in that cottage, and I never thought to question it.”

“I know now,” Takehito said, opening his eyes and smiling at the look of mild disbelief he saw in Haku’s face, “that there was magic at work, and that I was under a spell of sorts. But to me at the time, it was like a beautiful, endless dream. And despite all that I know now, I wouldn’t give back those years of my life, even if they weren’t completely real, even if I wasn’t living them entirely of my own free will.” He shot a fierce, defiant look at both of his listeners. “Even after all that’s passed, I can’t bring myself to regret my time in that cottage, loving and being loved in return. I’d never been happier in my entire life, and I know I will never be that happy again. Because no joy can ever surpass what I felt the day Yubaba told me I was going to become a father.”

Takehito looked at Haku, who was staring at him with an undecipherable expression in his eyes. “You were once a river spirit,” he told the boy, “so you must have had millions of beings under your protection at one point. You know the great responsibility, the burden even, of all those lives being _yours—_ yours to guard and keep safe. So perhaps it may seem ridiculous to you how a human can feel such an immense sense of both soul-quaking fear and soul-lifting rapture at the prospect of being responsible for the safety and well-being of just one single human child. But that’s what I felt. Terrified and enraptured at the same time. Incoherent with joy one moment and shaking with apprehension the next. Luckily, Yubaba was much better than I at handling our impending parenthood. She knew what tisanes to brew to counter her daily sickness—the herbs she needed appeared as conveniently as the food and clothing had—and she seemed to glow from within, brighter and brighter as she grew larger and larger. We still didn’t see a single soul, but she assured me that she didn’t need anyone but me beside her. The months passed, and we prepared for the baby, who Yubaba was convinced would be a boy. I cut down some branches of the birch trees outside to make a crib. Yubaba knitted blankets upon blankets from some soft yarn that had appeared one morning on the table. We started to think of names, but couldn’t agree on any we liked.” Takehito sighed. “It was a time of wonder and delicious anticipation. I could not wait for the day I would meet my son for the first time.”

“And then—” the sarugami’s face darkened, and his voice grew grim. “And then, one day two weeks before the baby was expected, everything changed. That was the day Zeniba showed up at the cottage, a furious expression on her face, and a golden seal in her hand.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This one has all the feels, and poor Haku is feeling a bit overwhelmed by it, as we'll see in the next few chapters. I wanted to start hinting in this chapter at Haku's curiosity about and potential capacity for romantic love (this is, after all, still a ChiHaku fic!). The moment Takehito describes of seeing a loved one again after a long period of separation is exactly what I imagine Haku feels when he sees Chihiro for the first time again on the bridge (I even went back and watched those 10 or so seconds of the movie on repeat while I was writing this chapter).
> 
> And in case it was unclear, the crossroads is where Ronin's mortal body is buried (the traditional burial place for dogs that were turned into inugami). In this story, Yubaba used his sacrifice to turn the crossroads into a gateway into the spirit world, although one still needs magic and for it to be a certain time of the day (ōmagatoki) to be able to cross over into that world.


End file.
